Noted rodeo cowboy Yakima Canutt embarked on a storied career as a stuntman in silent westerns, laying the groundwork for a lifelong passion for thrilling and often perilous stunts. Canutt's impressive resume boasted doubling for iconic stars such as Clark Gable and John Wayne, replicating heart-pumping feats like jumping off a cliff on horseback, leaping from a stagecoach onto its runaway team, and being "shot" off a horse at full gallop, among many other death-defying stunts.
As his expertise grew, Canutt became a master at orchestrating large-scale events involving livestock, including cattle stampedes, covered-wagon races, and epic battles between Indians and cavalry forces on a grand scale. His most remarkable achievement as a second-unit director was the staging and direction of the renowned chariot-race sequence in William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959),a monumental undertaking that spanned two years from initial planning to final execution.
